How would we go about requesting certain features in the maps that would make their utility greater? There are features which used to be in maps that are not there, and in discussions over the years I was told those features were either 'not yet re-implemented' or had been lost for other (seemingly) non-policy reasons. What is the process for making the case for, and prioritizing features within the maps program?

dobrichelovek wrote:How would we go about requesting certain features in the maps that would make their utility greater? There are features which used to be in maps that are not there, and in discussions over the years I was told those features were either 'not yet re-implemented' or had been lost for other (seemingly) non-policy reasons. What is the process for making the case for, and prioritizing features within the maps program?

You can make suggestions or requests using the Feedback link at the bottom of the maps page. That will get the appropriate people. But very seldom is there any word about if or when new features will be worked on or released or what the priorities are for development of the lds.org tools.

I guess I'll submit this as feedback, but will also compile the information here as I have seen others support previous posts on these topics and would hope that they might be useful somehow beyond sending them into the aforementioned process that usually doesn't provide any transparency.

1) The maps site used to have the ability to provide a list of the members that are only in the current map view. This feature was tied to the ability to print a map with the membership locations plotted, which was incredibly useful, but I have been informed was removed due to complaints of the print feature.- The use case for needing a list of members that is filtered by the current map view is for GEO Coding, Missionary and HT/VT efforts, etc. If I zoom into a particular block or neighborhood, filtering the list of users to just those in the current view is very helpful. -- The existing export functionality could be enhanced to export ONLY those users that are currently visible in a file. This would help those who are GEOCoding, Emergency Preparedness efforts, or HT/VT planning in identifying exactly which households are within the current boundaries. Missionaries could also benefit by having a list of members that is in the immediate area based on the map. Finally, when considering boundaries, this would be a simple and quick way to identify who would be affected in a particular area.

2) The maps site used to have the ability to filter the households shown based on status (Verified, Member Verified, Approximately Verified, Unverified, Unmapped) or Emergency Response Status or Special Needs Status.- The use case for these filters is being able to quickly identify on the map households that are in these various statuses and those households that are identified as special needs or emergency response equipped. Currently leaders can download a .csv file that contains this information, but the feature that allows these statuses to be set is severely hampered in its usefulness with these filters missing.- The filters used to be an option with check-boxes that would allow toggling on or off that category, which would (assumedly) add an option to the query that would include any records/households that included that category which would allow for displaying multiple categories at once.- Unit Leaders could use this visual display for planning for and supporting members of the ward, identifying only those households that are Unverified so they can focus on verification of those households, comparing the location of Special Needs households with physical maps that display barriers that might need to be considered, and various other planning efforts, including boundary considerations.-- Enhancing this functionality would be extremely helpful and will enable wards to more effectively be aware of the needs of the households in their wards and plan. Adding the ability to include these categories (and possibly Requested Not to Show, for Leaders who can see that) by making them inclusive check-boxes (defaulted to checked and hidden unless the feature is selected) that can be toggled to include households with a particular status along with all others that are chosen would enable a lot of functionality that, combined with the ability of #1 above, would provide leaders of units throughout the church with the ability to more effectively identify and minister to those who are within their boundaries.